Help! I deleted all my pictures. Is there a way to recover them?

[kantonburg]

Well all I can tell you is I keep my "Pictures" folder on my desktop and 99% of the pictures are of my son. I actually only lost about 200
pictures but there were about 2500 total in the folder. I keep a backup copy on another drive but lost the last 200 or so.

All I remember doing is installing Nortons AV yesterday. I found 4 "infected" files and I deleted them. I don't ever remember deleting the
folder and I have emptied the recycle bin several times since then just from habit. I like to keep it empty.

I've tried using the Norton's Recovery thing but had no luck. So am I SOL or what?

Thanks. The Ms. is POed So maybe you guys can save my hide

[NuTs62]

from what it sounds like, i think ur SOL. :(

[kantonburg]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOO :(

That folder had our first pictures of him standing for the first time.... :( :(

[coleslaw]

Here are some programs to try:

Drive Rescue (http://home.arcor.de/christian_grau/rescue/index.html)

RECOVER FIXED/FLOPPY DISK v2.0 (http://www.geocities.com/systechsoftware/recover/)


Best of luck!! :thumb:

[coleslaw]

Oh, and BTW, data never really disappears when you delete files, even if you empty the recycle bin. All deleting does is allow the operating system access to that hard-drive space if it needs it. I hope that you haven't been downloading files or using your computer much since you deleted your pictures. The longer you wait, the less and less chance you have at recovering your files.

My suggestion to you is to get a more preventative back-up solution, such as CD-R or a tape backup, to avoid something like this from happening in the future.

[kantonburg]

Originally posted by coleslaw
Here are some programs to try:

Drive Rescue (http://home.arcor.de/christian_grau/rescue/index.html)

RECOVER FIXED/FLOPPY DISK v2.0 (http://www.geocities.com/systechsoftware/recover/)


Best of luck!! :thumb:

I ran Drive Rescue and it found tons of deleted stuff but the thing is it's only finding all the pictures I currently have. I'm using the find feature to search files.

Am I going about it the wrong way or what?

[coleslaw]

I think that Drive Rescue displays all files and directories, meaning that it will display deleted files along with current undeleted files. The deleted files/directories should be green. You should be able to find the directory that the images were in and save the deleted pictures elsewhere.

[kantonburg]

Originally posted by coleslaw
I think that Drive Rescue displays all files and directories, meaning that it will display deleted files along with current undeleted files. The deleted files/directories should be green. You should be able to find the directory that the images were in and save the deleted pictures elsewhere.

I still can't find those pictures. It keeps finding the picture I presently have and the green files say they are in a "poor" condition.

Any advice or anything. I know I'm close to retrieving these :)

[mcs328]

My suggestion is stop using the computer your pictures are on to communicate to this board or else the chances of recovering your files becomes less and less. I have a utility that works like a charm I bought a few years ago called Recover-4-All. It runs off a floppy and does an excellent job of getting pics and docs back.

[kantonburg]

Well considering this is the only computer I have at the moment thats kind of hard :)

I've used several recovery programs and nothing seems to find anything. I don't know if I'm not using them correctly but Drive Rescue seems to be the most thourough but still only seems to find what is currently on the drive.

[MJordanash]

Originally posted by coleslaw
Oh, and BTW, data never really disappears when you delete files, even if you empty the recycle bin. All deleting does is allow the operating system access to that hard-drive space if it needs it. I hope that you haven't been downloading files or using your computer much since you deleted your pictures. The longer you wait, the less and less chance you have at recovering your files.

My suggestion to you is to get a more preventative back-up solution, such as CD-R or a tape backup, to avoid something like this from happening in the future.
Evidence Eliminator is a great program to use if you want to completely delete your data and files.

[Devhux]

Can any of these utilities work on an NTFS-formatted drive by chance? (trying to recover my Outlook Contact list.

[EDIT]

Never mind, I found a few that did, but none of them could find my contacts. Of course I did have a backup device, but let's just say it picked the wrong time to act up on me.